Bromley Cross Railway Station's Cross

Bromley Cross Station

Once upon a time there was an old monument known as Kershaw's Cross on the southern edge of the West Pennine Moors, northern England. There are still prehistoric remains in the area (a stone circle on the nearby Turton Moor) and evidence of Bronze Age cairns. But sadly, the cross is no longer to be seen.

The name Bromley is from the family who owned the land hundreds of years ago, and renamed the monument 'Bromley Cross'. The village and Bromley Cross Station lie three miles NNE of Bolton in the heart of Lancashire. The railway line links Bolton with the town of Blackburn, both of which flourished in the Industrial Revolution.

"Puffing Billy"

The station, like the village, is humble. Yet it was an essential cog in the vast wheel of the Industrial Revolution in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The changes in agriculture and manufacturing were made possible by the parallel revolution in rail transportation. These combined to have a profound socioeconomic effect on Britain and eventually, the world. The Industrial Revolution changed almost every aspect of human society.

(Humble station, profound effect. And two thousand years ago, the humble Cross of Christ invoked an even more profound change on the lives of everybody - past, present and future.)